Heinrich Himmler and other Nazi dignitaries in Dachau with Anton Mussert, the leader of the Dutch Nazi movement.

"Germany needs the strength of every single man for the development of its national and economic freedom. Therefore, no German has the right to impair his strength through alcohol abuse. Such action is detrimental not only to himself, but to his family, and above all, to his people." - Heinrich Himmler, 1938. (42)

"Rauschgiftbekaempfung" meant literally "the combatting of drugs." It was a policy coordinated by the Reich Health Service within the Ministry of the Interior. It was part of the same bureaucratic labyrinth that included the departments of hereditary science and racial hygiene, and much of its policy-making was conducted by Nazi physicians. An unholy alliance of Nazi eugenics and American prohibition, Rauschgiftbekaempfung unsuccessfully attempted to undo centuries of traditional social behavior. (43)

As in America, industrial hemp was being grown in Germany for the war effort. Similar to New York Mayor LaGuardia's 1944 investigation into the effects of cannabis, the Nazi's allowed cannabis research to continue through the 1930's. (44) When the war began, Germany's research ended.

Addicts of morphine and cocaine were locked up starting in 1941 by the "Reich Bureau for the Struggle against Addictive Drugs," a project under the direction of Reich Health Fuhrer Dr. Leonardo Conti. (45) Dr. Conti also conducted medical experiments on those he locked up. He was responsible for the killing of a large number of Germans of "unsound mind." (46)

Dr. Leonardo Conti

Dr. Conti also involved himself with malaria experiments at Dachau. The experiment involved 1,200 prisoners, most of them Catholic priests, and cost the lives of 300 to 400 persons. Of them no more than 30 died of the disease itself; the majority died from over doses of the medicines that were being tried out on them. (47) Dr. Conti committed suicide at Nuremberg in October 1945 after arrest to avoid a trial. (48)

Major General Kurt Blome

Assisting Dr. Conti was Major General Kurt Blome. (49) Dr. Blome later worked at Camp Detrick with Rockefeller's pal George Merck. (50)